Pull Me Out From Inside
by French Karma
Summary: [AU Post Devil's Trap] He can't stay long he's only passing through.


title and lyrics taken from _colorblind_ by counting crows.

* * *

_i am colorblind; coffee black and egg white. _

He has never known ghosts like the ones that drifted through the empty house before him.

The front door isn't boarded up, the windows still let the day shine through once in awhile and the porch is welcoming him to sit and stay for a minute; walk the steps of places once all his. Smell of crushed honeysuckle and heat envelope his pale skin. He can stand in front of this house, watching time pass by and no one will bother him.

No one ever walks by the house anymore.

The house still looks the same – he has almost let himself forget it. Someone could live there, but no one does. The house is a good place to raise children, but the holes in the walls are dubious. The house is a good place to grow up, but the messages on the wall in the third room from the left on the top floor aren't to be read. The house is a safe place, but no one knows that. Not unless they ask.

They know the house's secrets. But he knows its past.

He can't stay long; he's only passing through. He can't stay long; he has important matters to attend to. He can't stay long; already his legs are giving out beneath him.

- - -

_i am taffy stuck and tongue tied; stutter shook and uptight._

He stays true to his word and visits Missouri. He knows to keep his promises.

_Can't stay long; just passing through._

She gives him a look that he avoids. You can never lie with a mind reader. But she accepts the lie none the less and invites him in. They don't speak as she silently offers him coffee and he takes in the familiar comforts of rosemary and herbal teas.

His shoe scuffs the floorboard, but she doesn't chide him.

_Have you tried lately?_

He doesn't look at her as he shakes his head; he doesn't want to try. All he wants to know if it's such a bad thing, but he already has the answer mounted thick and heavy in his mind. It is a bad thing. He could feel himself loosing his footing on life with each step that he took. Further from the life he once lived. Further from home. Further from who he really was.

He sips his coffee; it scorches his tongue, but he doesn't complain. He watches daylight dance through the beads, casting shadows on the floor.

But how could he be sure who he is anymore?

He's an illusion – an equal combination of smoke and mirrors carefully built by those before him. Without the ones who created him, he floats without wings to the place where Earth and sky meet. He is a fine work of careful craftsmanship – subtle thoughts and actions, accompanied by a fading will to keep moving and the thought of something always better lingering on his mind. No matter where he was, he wanted what he had before.

_They've tried, y'know._

He watches dust float across rays of light, disappearing in and out of sun speckles and sky boxed into tiny windows. How everything was so easy when it was contained inside something so small and something so harmless. How life was so simple then.

_Sorry, I have to go, only passing through._

The chimes ring from the door signaling a customer and he finds his escape. The mood shifts, the tension thickens as the stranger steps into the room, pushing the beads aside. Dust flies as one foot steps forward and the beads scratch along the floor in a way that should send shivers down his spine, but only leaves him smiling at memories.

_Sorry, are you busy?_

_I was just leaving. Thank you_, he says with as much kindness as a complete stranger could offer and leaves before she can call him back.

He's gone in a mixture of smoke and mirrors, once again floating across baby blue skies and gravel roads that will forever be snapshots in time.

- - -

_i am covered in skin; no one gets to come in. _

Bobby tried his best. He understands. There's only so much you can do with the dead.

The coat isn't as smooth as it used to be – it won't ever be. But he knew long before one life fully ended and the other began that nothing would ever be the same. His fingers catch on peeling paint and he fights the urge to peel it away, to take it back to its bare bones. He wants to see the metal – rough and scratched – gleam in an ever living sun.

He doesn't want to be naked and exposed alone.

There is a dent in the hood that Bobby couldn't fix, a concave just barely visible in the driver's side; a reminder of that night.

He understands. It will never be the same.

A hand lingers on the door handle; one thumb brushes along the once sleek chrome handle. He's taken back; sounds of wind whistling through the windows, blood smeared across his fingers and the steering wheel, voices rushing into his ears. He's taken back and never wants to leave.

But he doesn't want to be exposed alone.

The doors don't squeak when he throws them open and he finds it amusing, considering the doors were never oiled before the accident. He opens and closes them, as though he doesn't know their purpose. And maybe he doesn't; everything's changed. Purposes and values changed… how could this not?

The leather is new – he expects to see blood stains, indent marks of where they sat for all those months and he actually wants to see the blood. He wants to be able to have the last parts of them when everything else faded with time.

He hopes for the lingering smell of gun powder and musk and stale coffee, but it smells like nothing and he's only a little disappointed. He kneels on the front seat, waiting for the groan and crunch of breaking leather, but it's soft and plush beneath his knees. He lets his shoulders sag in defeat only a little. He digs in the back for the bag that he always kept there; the one with all the memories of what should've lasted forever. But it's not there.

He knows only so much can be done with the dead.

Bobby watches from the window, cleaning his hands on a dirtied rag. They'll never come clean of the dirt and oil; the skin has grown over top and it will be a constant reminder of what happened and what had been done. But he still tries to rid of the one dot of red among the black.

_Staying around long?_

He looks up.

_No, just passing through._

_Only so much could be salvaged,_ Bobby explains.

He ducks out from the car, closing the door shut. He's relieved for the silence that rolls across the tattered yard, for if he heard the creak of hinges, he would expect to see his brother standing on the other side. He didn't want that kind of hope right then. He was already too exposed.

_Nothing could really be saved._

He didn't expect any of it to be.

- - -

_i am folded and unfolded and unfolding._

His dreams are cracks and fissures in reality. They stretch out, horribly long down unknown winding roads that are obscured by trees and unmovable darkness. It's mysterious and alluring, but he knows he has to stop before he goes too far.

He knows better than to live in dreams, his father taught him better. But it seems to be the only place he can see his father anymore.

- - -

_pull me out from inside. i am ready…_

The house is still empty, but when he decides to look at it again, it's dark out.

He's meant to be in the hotel, making important calls for important meetings about important things. Or what his job conceived as important. He didn't really see it that way. Just something to pass the time so he didn't have to fight with forgetting; let his mind unravel slowly so all that was left was something raw and pink to start fresh with.

The old tree, the one he used to hang from, is dying. It's been left unattended for years – he watches as the last of the leaves flutter to the ground, wilted and withering, under the scrutinizing eyes of a million stars that barely light the sky.

It's the middle of spring.

He sees things differently in the dark – the house is a widower; a glorious fading blue against the black of the night. The streets crumble faster and quicker as cars fly past him; broken leaves and air whip around his legs. He stands still, braving the onslaught to stare at the house.

The porch seems more inviting then it does during the day. Sounds of laughter and music blanket him and he looks for the source. But it's all in his head. Memories; memories that are soon to be forgotten. Memories that should be forgotten. He wants them to leave, but memories like these just don't fade in time. Memories likes these are etched in stone and even though he screams, the stone won't waste away. They stay.

He falls to the porch, hands catching his body unevenly. The stairs creak – they didn't last time he came around. He lies there, hidden by vines, tall grass and banisters with chipping white paint, breathing in scents of his lost childhood; the one that never really left at all.

He's found in the morning by a savior in a brown suit and black tie. The savior pulls him up and off the porch; his jaw and cheek ache from the rough, wooden boards.

_Move along son. Nothing to see._

He stumbles down the steps and he knows he won't come back. There's nothing left to come back for.

- - -

_i am ready, i am ready, i am…_

He takes the keys from Bobby's desk while he's sleeping – even from his youth, he still remembers where the spare key hides. The car protests for only a second and he's tearing out of the driveway, the sound of tires squealing underneath the weight; its something that will never leave the Impala until its final day.

The sky is a steely blue and he expects rain to plummet down on him. Crack the windows, dent the roof, and make the car break again. He wants to know if it can evade death a second time.

But there is only so much you can do with the dead.

His hand sticks out the window as he tears down black paved highways, heading further away from his final destination. He will take all the roads he has traveled before and see if he remembers any of the towns, if they ever had names. He will see if he can place a date, a time, a demon, a person. He will see if he can remember what was said, what was felt – if he felt anything at all.

He's always liked a challenge.

But the roads blur by and he doesn't stop when a familiar town sweeps by. He's going too fast, too quick to slow down now. He's lifting up, up, up and he's sure he can feel the wings grow from his back as he takes flight, away from it all.

A wisp of smoke and a crack of a mirror, the Impala takes him back to the country side.

- - -

_i am colorblind; pull me out from inside. i am ready, i am ready, i am ready; i am fine._

Sam Winchester has never known ghosts like the ones that invade his mind, but when he hears an old favorite of Dean's play on the radio, he can't help but mind them as he takes the longest way back to California possible.


End file.
